Cool Person of the Day

Video content is a great marketing tool and can be a very engaging experience for users.  However, video content can also be also limited in its appeal.  Users who are hearing impaired or who do not speak the language used in the video are all immediately eliminated from experiencing a video’s content.  This is fine if a company aims its video at a small community or niche audience, but those who want to appeal to people in a global way are stuck.  Cool person in technology David Orban wants to solve this dilemma with his company Dotsub.  Orban is the CEO of Dotsub, who provides companies with the tools and software to caption and translate their online videos for wider user engagement.  Orban’s company provides their software as a service for businesses that want their video content to be accessible to a wider audience.  Users who have trouble operating the software should get remote computer support to help them resolve any issues. Read more »

Working on a single project with someone else can be a logistically difficult process.  It often requires constantly sending files back and forth and providing commentary on each other’s work with each step of the process.  Cool person in technology Jahanzeb Sherwani wants to remove the obstacles of this process with his company ScreenHero.  ScreenHero develops a real-time collaborative program that enables two users to share a computer screen when working on projects together.  This could potentially allow for more efficient collaboration and save users’ time when they need to work together to get something done.  Sherwani wants to enable screen sharing across multiple platforms as well.  That’s why he and his team developed ScreenHero to be compatible with both Mac OS and Windows and work cross-platform.  Even if your partner is using a Mac while you’re on a Windows machine, ScreenHero can help you collaborate on the same project simultaneously. Sherwani also recently integrated voice chat into ScreenHero so users don’t have to use a third-party program to speak to each other while working on a project together.  If you have any issues using ScreenHero’s features, you should seek PC tech support for help. Read more »

Those who commute to and from work on public transit know how unpredictable and inconvenient it can be to use.  Trains, buses, and ferries often run off schedule due to delays.  Scott Kolber is a cool person in technology trying to tackle this problem as CEO of Roadify.  Roadify is a company that makes and distributes an iOS app of the same name, which feeds users information about public transit schedules, changes, and delays in real-time.  Kolber and his team aggregate all public transit information through the app in real time so users are up to date on what the fastest public transit routes to home and work are and what routes might slow them down or get them in trouble.  Kolber wants to offer users a comprehensive resource so they can avoid public transit disasters as they try to get around their hometown.  Users who believe their Roadify data isn’t updating properly can always contact smartphone tech support to find a solution. Read more »

Have you ever been to a restaurant or retail store and realized the same five or six songs were playing on repeat over the PA?  Cool person in technology Garrett Dodge wants to stop that from happening at restaurants and retail stores.  Many commercial and retail businesses play music while they’re open so their customers can enjoy it, but the vast majority of the time it ends up being a passive exercise.  Businesses simply put on a Pandora station or iTunes playlist and customers eventually tune out.  Dodge created Rockbot to find a better way to use music in commercial business.  Rockbot licenses a database of songs for businesses to use in their stores, but adds a twist to the streaming service model: it also has a mobile app that allows customers to rate and request music played at your business.  This means your customers can help influence your venue’s music selection, incentivizing them to stay longer and engage with your system.  Customers who have issues using the app can get mobile tech support to assist them.  Dodge believes this will help businesses get more productive use out of the music they play. Read more »

There are many question and answer services on the Internet, but cool person in technology Chester Yeum believes that there is an inherent flaw in all of them: they don’t let you choose who can answer your questions.  In response to this problem, Yeum founded Quextit, a question and answer website that lets users set restrictions on who can answer the queries they post.  Unlike public question and answer sites where anyone can answer users’ inquiries regardless of their credentials, Quextit lets users target potential answerers by age, gender, ethnicity, language, educational experience, job, marital status and location.  This means that users won’t get unfit answers from a man with only a high school diploma if the question they’re obviously aiming their question at women with PhDs.  Yeum wants users to be comfortable asking questions on his website.  He believes targeted questions are the best way to do this, as well as ensure that users get answers as relevant as possible when they use the site.  If you have problems creating your profile or using the Quextit interface, contact online tech support to get help.  Read more »

Starting any company from scratch is difficult, but founding a hardware startup comes with its own unique set of challenges that make it especially difficult—manufacturing costs, distribution problems, and shipping concerns are just the most obvious of these.  That’s why cool person in technology Scott N. Miller runs Dragon Innovation to help new hardware startups ship their first products.  Miller has run Dragon Innovation for many years as a consultancy firm for hardware startups that need help due to inexperience with manufacturing physical products at scale.  However, recently Miller has taken his company in a slightly different direction to set itself apart from other firms.  Miller has added a crowdfunding aspect to Dragon Innovation’s business model and is utilizing this new trend to enable his firm’s clients to succeed.  Read more »

Many founders and CEOs can attest to how running just one business can consume someone’s life.  That’s why cool person in technology Tony Stubblebine stands out in his field.  For him, one tech startup was not enough, he actively runs two.  In 2007, Stubblebine founded CrowdVine, a company that creates web-based social networks for conferences and company events.  That company grew over the years and remained successful, but in 2011, Stubblebine decided that he needed more.  He had another idea that he wanted to nurture and grow into a successful business.  That idea was Lift, an iPhone app that assists users in forming and maintaining good habits such as exercising, eating healthy, and keeping in touch with old friends.  Some founders and CEOs would have left one company to start another, or even sold their first venture to support the next, but Stubblebine continues to work as the head of both businesses. Read more »

Geotagging has become a useful tool for many consumer technology startups and services. Travel and hospitality websites and applications see the ability to attach information to specific locations digitally as a way to add new features and increase convenience for their customers.  However, cool person in technology Pedro Valdeolmillos doesn’t think geotagging’s benefits should be limited to locations on land.  Valdeolmillos founded tech company Bloosee to help sea-lovers take advantage of this technology as well.  Read more »

External batteries for the extended use of mobile devices have grown in popularity over the last few years.  Power users who travel frequently like having constant access to an extra power source so they don’t disconnect at inconvenient times.  Unfortunately, not unlike smartphones themselves, these external batteries can sometimes be quite fragile.  Zendure CEO and founder Bryan Liu has developed an external battery where durability should not be a concern.  Liu calls these batteries the A-series.  Zendure is aiming these products at those who want extra charge for their mobile devices on the go, but don’t want to worry about carrying around another easily breakable electronic accessory. Liu is a cool person in technology who wants to solve this type of problem for consumers. Read more »

It is a common practice to pool money for major purchases.  Large groups of friends will often combine their efforts to give someone a larger more significant gift than they could give individually, or pool their resources to go on a big vacation together that they otherwise would not be able to afford.  Cool person in technology Camilo Acosta is using the Internet to make this process easier to organize with his service PayByGroup. PayByGroup streamlines the process of purchasing things together and can potentially turn the entire process of organizing people to split the bill into just a few clicks for everyone involved.  Read more »